The Enemy
by Daria234
Summary: Different characters wish for something and years later they realize they got what they wanted. Except it wasn't necessarily what they wanted after all.  Sarah, Jesse, Cameron.


When Sarah was young - and blissfully insignificant - she would yell at the television screen as she watched the news.

Abhorring the state of the world just seemed like a natural response.

She distinctly remembers hearing about the latest failed treaty effort and wishing loudly that these violent men - and indeed, anyone who had the power to choose a future of war or peace - would all be thrown into some secret room somewhere, trapped together with no hope of escape. Then they would have no choice but to learn to live with their enemy.

Now that she is older, she still abhors the state of the world.

Even though she knows it could be worse.

And probably will be.

But now she lives with one of the things that killed Kyle and all the others, that might kill her and John still. She watches carefully as Cameron walks freely about her house, as she hides things that she doesn't think Sarah can find, as she sits close to John on the couch and stares at him until he stares back. And she knows that younger self had no idea that sharing close quarters just makes it impossible to forget - even for a moment - all that your enemy has done.

And all she might still do.

She tries to appreciate the irony, but she can't quite do it.

* * *

The first command Jesse had, she had to kill one of her own men, a nineteen year old kid.

Connor sent down the order that grays were to be made an example of.

The kid begged. Jesse ignored it. She shot him in front of the unit and spat an order to clean it up.

As soon as she was alone, she fell on her hands and knees and tried to choke down any sound that would reveal she was bawling.

Every time she tried to stand, she thought of how much easier it would be to just end it. The machines were going to win no matter what, hell, even Connor had a pet cyborg. But she had to put one in the head of a human being, one she liked and cared about and just yesterday would have died to protect.

Let Connor fight his own battles, without her.

But she had the rest of the unit to lead. And they didn't need another dead body that night, especially not hers.

As she tried to put on the appearance of a commander, a false face of ice and calculation, she wished, in one weak second, that she didn't have to feel any of it, that she could be that ruthless strategist who felt nothing at throwing away a life for the greater good. She tried not to think about the fact that she was wishing she was more like metal.

Years later, after she knew more about life - and after she had come a whole lot closer to eating a gun than she did that night - she remembered that night.

Back then, Jesse wouldn't ever exploit a girl like Riley. Riley was half broken soul, half trusting kid, and Jesse knew it. But it didn't matter. Not if her plan had even a chance of working.

And when she remembered what her younger self wanted, she realized that this was the sick joke that time played: if you survive long enough, you get what you want, but it's just a punishment for wanting it in the first place.

* * *

Cameron was fascinated by Allison.

It wasn't just that she was Connor's confidant. There was something uniquely iAllison/i in that fleshy nothing, some stubborn strength that kept Cameron out, some tangled whirl of human needs that made her utterly, exhilaratingly unknowable.

Cameron had assumed their thoughts, memories, and sense perceptions had no organization, no method, just some primal collage that the human mind cobbled together and then accessed in random, unpredictable ways; this was what made humans so intractable. But as she tried to press Allison's secrets out of her, tried to acquire enough to infiltrate Connor's camp, all she really learned was that the human mind iwasn't/i just a messy heap of ridges. It was something much richer and more fluid that she had imagined. Allison knew she was about to die but she acted like she didn't know; she asked questions that seemed to come out of nowhere; she reacted to pain or comfort with countless paradoxical gestures; and not once was Cameron able to figure out what she would do next. Cameron knew then that she would never be able to really pass as Allison. There was just too imuch there./i But this realization made it worth it; it was invigorating even as it was disturbing. And for a moment, Cameron felt something almost like envy.

Because Allison was some numinous thing, some gorgeous chaos rife with entanglements and contradictions that pulled her in all directions. Cameron couldn't see the order, the pattern, and so Allison seemed just utterly, exquisitely ilost/i.

And for a moment Cameron wished she could know what that felt like.

Years later, she recalls that strange experience of wanting to be like the enemy.

Of course humans are not her enemy any more.

But it's not easy. There have been glitches, in both her and her plan. She really should convince John to destroy her, just in case, but somehow she is as loathe to do it as past John is.

And she finds herself learning about things that have nothing to do with John Connor. And sparing lives that could easily be ended in secret.

More and more, Cameron is realizing she isn't sure about herself. About anything.

She remembers that long ago, she wanted this. She had no idea it would be like this, no sense of what it would do to her. But she wanted it, and then she got it.

She suspects that this means something.

* * *

AN: Written for the prompt at tscc_las on lj - "Someone gets what they wished for (but it doesn't turn out how they wanted)"


End file.
